ALIGNED with the United Nations’ (UN) 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), De La Salle University (DLSU)—through the La Salle Food and Water Institute—has partnered with the Philippine Coffee Guild (PCG) to promote an exchange of best practices in the areas of research, social development, and the environment.
The parties entered a memorandum of understanding on September 3, with DLSU President Br. Bernard Oca FSC and Philippine Coffee Guild’s President Ronald Yu as signatories. DLSU Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation Dr. Raymond Tan and PCG Director Jaycee Martinez served as witnesses.
Through the collaboration, DLSU aims to build initiatives, policy research, networking activities, classes and industry-wide forums. The long-term goal of the university is to strengthen its growing and caring research community which answers the call to timely, relevant, and favorable solutions.
“This confluence of efforts by…leading private academics and research university in the country, [as well as] the organization composed of national coffee champions, both literally and figuratively, did not happen overnight,” La Salle Food and Water Institute Director Dr. Emmanuel Garcia said. “It has been the result of several years of frequent, serious, deep, and broad-minded exchange of notes.”
Garcia added, “The forthcoming collaborative projects and activities will not only boost the case for industry-academe cooperation, but also stress the importance of such cooperation as a crucial driver of the UN’s SDGs. In time, we will see that this is really not just about coffee.”